A Scandal In Belgravia French Premier
* 23 February 2012

We are extremely pleased to bring you a report on the
French premiere of Sherlock: A Scandal in Belgravia that took place
last week in Paris, that was attended by Steven Moffat and Sue
Vertue. We are hugely indebted to our friends at BBC Sherlock France for bringing us this
piece. You can read their original report in French here, with more of
their photos from the event.

It was very early when we all arrived at the France
Televisions' buildings, Wednesday 15th February, for the French
Sherlock 'A Scandal in Belgravia' press screening, but in fact it
was part of the plan… It was our first meeting 'in real life' for
all of us and we decided that we could use the time before the
screening began to chat with each other for real, and not with a
computer screen between us.

Slowly, some other fans arrived in the hall too and we saw that
the screening was about to begin when Nathalie Peyrissac from the
France Televisions' staff comes to me saying that Steven Moffat was
still with the press and that the screening will start as soon as
they finish. As soon as she left us, we decided to wait outside the
screening rooms' doors like the other fans.

A little after 8pm, the doors opened and two women
with deerstalkers were standing at the entrance and asking us one
by one our names to check if we were actually on their lists.

Once inside, we saw that everything was ready for the
cocktails after the screening and that France Televisions decorated
the room with some Sherlock series 2 promo pictures. We took some
pictures of the room before anyone sees us as we weren't actually
authorized to take them. After every name was checked by the staff,
they open the doors of the first screening room and we followed the
crowd inside, deciding that we will have a better view of the
screen at the back of the room and making our way to take seats.
Once sat down, we were surprised to see that Steven Moffat and Sue
Vertue were supposed to sit in front of us, wondering if the France
Televisions' staff wouldn't ask us to move because we were fans and
not journalists. But nobody seemed to care about whom we were when
Steven and Sue sit, having said a quiet hello to us before.

After a short presentation of the episode by a member of the
France Televisions' staff, the screening begins. We were all
pleased to see that they had chosen the original version with
French subtitles. Even if it seems completely logical that way, we
all wondered if they weren't going to choose the French
version…

Being sat just behind Steven and Sue, we could see
how much they were pleased by all the positive reactions from
everyone, they were even laughing at the beginning while listening
to some of us telling the lines in time with the actors during the
"Previously" part. At this point they couldn't confuse us with
journalists any more, the fact we know the episode by heart was
enough to tell them we were fans!

Nearly 20 minutes before the end of the episode,
something got wrong with the DVD and everything became black.
Having apologized for the setback, the staff asked us to wait for a
few minutes, thus allowing Steven to check his phone, possibly for
news about the shooting of Doctor Who which was going to begin
again soon…

Once the new dvd was ready, the screening began again
and as soon as the episode ended, Alain Carrazé (a french expert
about Sherlock Holmes' stories) asked Steven to join him for the
Q&A. I wasn't able to write everything but our partners at
3xcusemyfrench got it all here (and in english!
The one about Sherlock's gift to John was asked by one of our
members).

30 minutes after and all the questions answered,
everyone was asked to join the cocktail party outside the room.
Before having a chance to get something to eat and drink, Steven
took some time to sign autographs and take photos with the fans.
With the large number of people asking him for autographs it was
very hard to approach him but some of us succeeded and got pictures
with him or autographs. Meanwhile, three of us were lucky enough to
discuss with Erick Basly (BBC's dubbing executive) about the French
version of Sherlock.

We were very honoured with the time he spent with us,
asking us what we thought of his work on Sherlock, before asking us
what version we prefer when watching a series (the original version
or the French one) and so on. It was very interesting for us to
chat with him, not only about Sherlock but also about Doctor Who
and Torchwood. He also took the time to present us (we were now all
the 10 of us chatting with him) to some members of his team and to
Gilles Morvan and Yann Peyra, the French voice actors behind
Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. They were all very kind with us,
answering all our questions about their work and sharing with us
their own theories about the end of the series 2. It's nice to see
they love this series as much as we do and that's maybe why, at the
end of the evening, we were still in the cocktail room with them,
talking and taking photos with us (and it was the first time in the
evening it wasn't us asking for photos but the BBC team members,
which was quite funny for us). As it was getting late and we were
the last fans to leave, we all bid them 'goodnight', wishing them
luck for their dubbing sessions tomorrow morning before getting out
the building and heading home.

This evening was really an amazing experience for us.
We were very pleased to have gotten that chance and meet all these
people…

And now we are all hoping we will soon have the chance to organize
our own Sherlock convention for all the French fans who couldn't be
there to share with us their love for this series…